The House voted Thursday to send articles of impeachment against President Biden to two committees, after Speaker Kevin McCarthy headed off an immediate floor vote to impeach the president.
The vote, which accuses Mr. Biden with high crimes and misdemeanors for mishandling border security, sends the impeachment resolution to the House Homeland Security and Judiciary committees.
The measure passed along party lines, 219 to 208, and sidelined an immediate effort by Rep. Lauren Boebert, Colorado Republican, to bring the privileged resolution to the floor for a vote.
Mr. McCarthy, California Republican, who was blindsided by Mrs. Boebert’s impeachment resolution, urged her to take a more thorough approach.
Mr. McCarthy told reporters that sending the resolution to the committees “doesn’t do anything to harm the current investigations going forward.”
“I think the conference continues to work together [on] all the ideas we want to put forth,” Mr. McCarthy said.
Mrs. Boebert told reporters she was satisfied with the outcome of her resolution being sent to both committees.
“I actually supported this very much. So I am so happy that there’s actually a process that we’re going about, and an impeachment inquiry is beginning now in the Homeland Security Committee,” she said.
“Chairman Mark Green is excited to add this impeachment inquiry into the work that he’s already doing to impeach [Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas. He has a five-stage plan that he’s working on in the committee that I’m very proud of,” she said.
Because the resolution is privileged, a member can force a vote over leadership objections. When a lawmaker raises a question of privilege on the floor, House leaders must schedule a vote on it within two legislative days.
Although Mrs. Boebert’s initial impeachment resolution was not expected to pass Thursday, some GOP rank-and-file lawmakers became irritated when they found out about the resolution, as it would force them into a problematic vote without going through an exhaustive investigative inquiry.
Rep. Bob Good, Virginia Republican, said he understood why other GOP lawmakers were growing impatient over when Republicans would finally start moving on impeachment.
While some issues needed long investigations in the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, he told The Washington Times, other issues, including the open border and the president depleting the strategic petroleum reserve for political purposes, did not require deep probes.
“The speaker said last summer when leading up to the election, we would impeach Mayorkas if we had the majority,” Mr. Good said. “Why has that not happened? If we’d impeach Mayorkas, maybe there would be more patience waiting on President Biden to see if impeaching Mayorkas might change Biden’s policies.”
The Colorado Republican’s action prompted a heated exchange on the floor on Wednesday between her fellow Freedom Caucus and conservative firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Mrs. Greene reportedly called Rep. Lauren Boebert a “little b——” during a heated confrontation between the two conservative lawmakers on the House floor.
The angry exchange was caught on C-SPAN cameras, and both were arguing over their respective resolutions that each put forth to impeach Mr. Biden, according to the Daily Beast.
“I’ve donated to you, I’ve defended you. But you’ve been nothing but a little b—— to me,” Mrs. Greene reportedly told the Colorado lawmaker. “And you copied my articles of impeachment after I asked you to cosponsor them.”
After Mrs. Greene excoriated her using profanities and Mrs. Boebert responded saying, “OK, Marjorie, we’re through.”
“We were never together,” Mrs. Greene lashed out, but Mrs. Boebert had her back turned to her.
Mrs. Boebert, following the vote Thursday, refused to discuss the confrontation between herself and Mrs. Greene.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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